1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to systems and methods for transmitting, receiving and displaying information over wireless communication and data processing devices. The present invention relates more specifically to a system and method for collecting, uploading, transmitting, receiving, downloading, manipulating, and displaying medical patient data to a mobile display device operable by the patient's physician or health care provider.
2. Description of the Related Art
While physicians and other health care providers currently utilize a large number of products and systems that benefit from advances in wireless communication technology, there are still significant limitations to the information that can be transmitted, received, and displayed over these devices in a practical and efficient manner. While text messaging and voice communications have been fairly well established in the health care and medical fields, the wireless transmission of critical patient data has, for a number of reasons, been slow to develop. There are many limitations that are intrinsic to mobile devices, especially those constraints related to speed, performance, memory, and display size. In addition, because of the critical nature of the data, it is important that the technology work reliably and efficiently over potentially low speed, low bandwidth, and sometimes intermittent cell phone connections.
Efforts have been made in the past to transmit medical information through various telecommunication means to health care professionals for review and analysis. These efforts include the following:
U.S. Pat. No. 6,589,170 B1 issued to Flach et al. on Jul. 8, 2003, entitled Medical Telemetry System with Cellular Reception of Patient Data. In something of the reverse of the present invention, the Flach et al. disclosure describes a system that collects patient data by telemetry from wireless patient sensor units. The data is collected and concentrated in standard hospital network information processing systems.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,093,146 issued to Filangeri on Jul. 25, 2000, entitled Physiological Monitoring. Similar to Flach et al., this patent likewise describes a system whereby the patient data is wirelessly communicated to a nearby base station from which the data may then be transmitted (by wire line) to a remotely accessible telephone network.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,302,844 B1 issued to Walker et al. on Oct. 16, 2001, entitled Patient Care Delivery System. The system described in the Walker et al. patent identifies anomalies in colleted patient data and determines whether it is necessary to contact a physician (by telephone, for example) regarding the anomalous event.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,416,471 B1 issued to Kumar et al. on Jul. 9, 2002 entitled Portable Remote Patient Telemonitoring System describes yet another system for collecting patient data from a wireless sensor device on the patient and transmitting it to a nearby base station from which the information is sent by standard techniques to a remote monitoring station.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,336,900 B1 issued to Alleckson et al. on Jan. 8, 2002, entitled Home Hub for Reporting Patient Health Parameters provides for yet another system that collects patient data from wireless transmitting sensors on the patient and places the information/data on a public data transmission network.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,168,562 B1 issued to Brown on Jan. 2, 2001, entitled Remote Health Monitoring and Maintenance System describes a patient monitoring system that adds the capability of remotely re-programming the sensor system associated with the patient so as to alter the manner in which it collects patient data.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,475,146 B1 issued to Frelburger et al. on Nov. 5, 2002, entitled Method and System for Using Personal Digital Assistants with Diagnostic Medical Ultrasound Systems. The primary purpose of the system described in the Frelburger et al. disclosure is to permit the use of a PDA as a source of control information, data, and/or commands to carry out the operation of an ultrasound examination system.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,520,910 B1 issued to Kohls on Feb. 18, 2003, entitled Method and System of Encoding Physiological Data. This system focuses on the transfer of high-resolution data to workstations with lower-performance capabilities in order to permit some level of data analysis thereon. The patent describes the manipulation of graphic files for the purpose of making the high-resolution data more accessible.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,383,137 B1 issued to Berry on May 7, 2002, entitled Labor Alerting Device. This patent describes the use of an implanted monitor to detect the on-set of labor and to transmit a signal to a pager or PDA that notifies the patient or the patient's physician of the impending birth. The system does not communicate data beyond the simple event notification.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,616,613 B1 issued to Goodman on Sep. 9, 2003, entitled Physiological Signal Monitoring System. The Goodman patent describes a system specifically designed to communicate photoplethysmography (PPG) data from a patient to a system web server for analysis, storage and later retrieval. The patent is specific to the monitoring of the circulatory system and endeavors to analyze heart and blood data for remote monitoring.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,641,533 B2 issued to Causey, III et al. on Nov. 4, 2003, entitled Handheld Personal Data Assistant (PDA) with a Medical Device and Method of Using the Same. This patent describes the localized use of a PDA in conjunction with a medical device for the processing of data received there from. The system focuses on the ability to remotely program the medical device with the PDA and the snapshot presentation of data thereon.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,954,663 issued to Gat on Sep. 21, 1999, entitled Fetal Monitoring System and Method describes one system for the collection and storage of patient data that includes fetal heart rate and uterine contraction data. The patent addresses the integration of multiple monitoring systems within a hospital setting but does not discuss conditioning the data for transmission over wide area networks or wireless devices.
The above identified systems in the related art variously describe attempts to utilize wireless data communication technologies to transmit medical information to health care providers, or to condition data such that it may be useful for remote monitoring purposes. The ability to transmit real-time graphical data in a discernable form to small hand-held type devices is noticeably lacking from all of the systems described. While the collection of patient data and the wireless transmission of the same to some local hub has been quite thoroughly explored, such systems have no need to consider the ability to display such data in useful form on display systems with lower memory and processing capacities such as PDAs. At best the above systems anticipate the display of snapshots of data that in most circumstances is wholly insufficient to allow the physician to make a judgment about the condition of a patient or the proper course of action to take.
It would be desirable to provide a system that is capable of transmitting patient physiological data over a wide area data communications network with a resolution sufficient to provide real-time monitoring and accurate analysis by a remote physician or health care provider. It would be desirable if the system could communication more than a single physiological parameter and could display the same with a discernable resolution on a small display screen such as may be present on a PDA or cellular phone. It would be desirable if the system allowed the remote health care provider not only view the data in real-time but to also scroll backward through the data to identify and characterize trends in the patient's condition. It would be desirable if the display capabilities included features such as landscape/portrait viewing, patient biographical data viewing, patient image viewing, zoom in/out graphical data viewing, variable speed scrolling and HIPAA compliant information security measure. It would be desirable if such a system could be implemented using currently available operating systems for hand held data communication devices over currently available bandwidth on established wide area data and telecommunication network systems.